Everything Tastes Better When It’s Precious
[An] unrequited love of language is demonstrated throughout The Hermit, as the speakers of the poems seem to continually give and love openly, but are often left hurting or alone—left to their prisons.
Reviews
2621 posts
Philosopher or Dog?
Andrew O’Hagan’s playful novel The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of his Friend, Marilyn Monroe follows one terrier around the mid-20th century as he pontificates on Plutrach,…
Looking for Hymns of Seizure
There is some of Rilke’s spiritual longing in Basil, expressed most frequently through agonizing bodies and food.
The Discerning Eye
Rosamond Bernier’s new memoir, Some of My Lives, opens up her intriguing life as a friend and critic of renowed artists of the 20th century.
What Began As a Love Letter…
Warmed and Bound, an anthology of neo-noir fiction, offers 38 dark and beautiful stories from Matt Bell, Blake Butler, and others.
Observe as Meat Falls
This collection is not kind or nice, but the brutality of his honesty, the blunt force of his handling of subject matter, and most importantly, his emotional transparency, make this…
Why not read Moby-Dick?
Historian Nathaniel Philbrick lays out a convincing, if scholarly, case for why Moby-Dick is relevant to modern audiences.
All Narration Just Congeals
Cœur de Lion is a lyric book, a book about being in love with someone you can’t have, and it unflinchingly acknowledges that the person she falls for is kind…
Wayward In The Light
Set in a dive bar, Joshua Mohr’s new novel, Damascus follows a weird gang as their lives crumble. Somehow it’s still life-affirming.
Make Your Own
Tyler McMahon’s debut novel relives and re-examines a celebrated musical era: grunge rock from America’s Pacific Northwest.
A Nova of Votives
In this collection, the elegy as an idea is as much at stake as the lover in memoriam—in fact, it would seem that Teare has managed, through sublimation, to combine…
Moby Dick: Illustrated and Interpreted
Through playful and evocative illustrations, Matt Kish’s Moby Dick in Pictures transforms on one of the greatest American novels and makes it relevant again.